Episodes
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Most bankers dread the thought of a core conversion, but once that decision is made, the process can open up new opportunities for strategic growth. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Webster Five CIO Kate Megraw discusses her bank’s conversion and what she learned. Among other topics, Megraw explains:
How a new core met the business strategy needs of Massachusetts-based Webster Five. The process of developing an RFP, exploring models and working with a core selection consultant. The role of commercial client growth in driving the need for a new core platform. Challenges and successes experienced in the conversion process.Megraw will join fellow Core Platforms Committee members to discuss conversions at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 27-29 in New York City.
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As chief corporate responsibility officer for Webster Bank, Marissa Weidner works across the bank’s footprints and business lines to help advance the bank’s goals of financial empowerment. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Weidner discusses the many dimensions of how this takes shape at the northeastern regional bank. Among other topics, she explores:
Webster’s focus on access to capital for small businesses, including those owned by minorities and women. How Webster designed its special-purpose credit program focused on homeownership. Webster’s innovative “finance labs,” built in partnership with local schools and nonprofit partners, to provide hands-on financial experience for young people from low-to-moderate-income areas. The role of Bank On accounts in Webster’s financial inclusion strategy.Weidner also discusses her career journey — including experience in economic development, bank human resources and bank merger integration — that led her to her current role.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
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Missing episodes?
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Fraud is front and center for America’s banks, and on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — ABA’s Paul Benda and Peter Cook discuss several recent initiatives taken by ABA to help banks tackle fraud from a variety of fronts.
Benda discusses ABA’s recently expanded Fraud Contact Directory, which is free to all banks and now encompasses other forms of fraud to facilitate prompt claims. He also explores new tools banks are using to tackle rising fraud numbers. Meanwhile, Cook discusses the latest incarnation of ABA’s award-winning #BanksNeverAskThat anti-phishing campaign — returning for a fourth year in October and also free to all banks — and previews a new companion initiative, Practice Safe Checks, that educates consumers about how to avoid becoming unwitting victims of check fraud. -
Earlier this week, VersaBank closed on its purchase of Stearns Bank Holdingford N.A., giving the Canadian point-of-sale lender a point of entry into the U.S. market. On the season eight premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — VersaBank founder and CEO David Taylor discusses the bank’s growth plans in the United States.
Taylor also explores his career history in banking, the story of VersaBank as the first new bank to receive a license in Canada in 18 years, how the bank developed a deposit broker network in Canada, VersaBank’s point-of-sale lending strategy (and how it can acquire loans without any equity from the finance company), and VersaBank’s talent and culture.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
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Consumers everywhere see and hear credit union marketing campaigns, from PenFed’s ubiquitous jingle to big stadium and Super Bowl sponsorship deals. In fact, according to a new ABA DataBank post from ABA’s Dan Brown and Robert Flock, credit unions spend more than double what comparable banks do on marketing as a percentage of net income.
But why do credit unions, which serve members from defined fields of membership, spend so much? On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Brown and Flock break down the legislative and regulatory history of fields of membership and how the average credit union has more than doubled its “potential membership” since new rules were finalized in 2015, using their taxpayer subsidy to fuel growth via marketing rather than lower rates and costs for their members.
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At the midpoint of the year, what’s the M&A outlook like for community banks? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA Banking Journal Contributing Editor Paul Davis discusses what he’s seeing with mergers and acquisitions and what to expect for the remainder of 2024.
Davis, the founder of the Bank Slate newsletter, also discusses what he’s hearing from banks about succession planning and talent and talks about budget forecasting, an area the Bank Slate is surveying bankers on for 2025.
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On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA economist Jeff Huther discusses recent dynamics with the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the “world’s most important number.” Huther delves into topics in his his new ABA DataBank essay, exploring how quantitative tightening has pushed SOFR toward the upper end of the Federal Open Market Committee’s rate target range, the effects of monetary policy mechanisms like the Overnight Reverse Repo Facility, and how banks and other SOFR users can manage volatility that may emerge in the rate.
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To mark Independence Day this week, this classic replay episode of the ABA Banking Journal explores the role of banking and finance in the American Revolution and the founding era. John Steele Gordon is an acclaimed economic historian whose books include Hamilton’s Blessing, The Great Game and An Empire of Wealth; he is also the ABA Banking Journal’s “From the Vault” columnist. In this episode, Gordon discusses:
How not having any chartered banks prior to 1782 put the United States at a disadvantage during the Revolution. Conversely, how the Bank of England was a “secret weapon” for Britain during the war. The role of patriotic financiers like Robert Morris in achieving U.S. victory. The debates over a central bank in the post-revolutionary period and how they contributed to the development of the Constitution. -
“We’re seeing banks that have never been scrutinized before for redlining and being told that they have risk that they have not before and risk in ways that they’ve never really viewed it before,” says Andrea Mitchell. “We’re in some new territory, and I think it’s important for CEOs to understand what their compliance officers and legal departments are seeing on the ground.”
In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Andrea Mitchell, a top fair lending attorney, reviews the latest trends in redlining enforcement. She reviews cases brought by the Justice Department, the importance of screening programs, planning for entering new markets, the role of peer analyses in managing redlining risk and the effects of redlining enforcement on M&A activity.
Mitchell also discusses the intersection of DOJ enforcement and prudential supervision, noting that “if your regulator thinks you’re doing very well, even in in terms of minority market lending, and is relying on your CRA rating, there’s nothing that prevents HUD or DOJ or other agencies from scrutinizing you.”
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Brent Beardall thinks bankers need to be more comfortable with risk. “We’re not out there taking crazy risk, but my point is don’t be afraid to fail,” says the president and CEO of WaFd Bank, based in tech-focused Seattle. “If you’re going to fail: fail quickly, fail small. That’s the two requirements I have, because if you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.”
In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Beardall discusses technology experiments that didn’t work, and those that did. He discusses the bank’s tech lab subsidiary Archway Software and its combined voice- and phone-based authentication for wire transfers.
Beardall discusses WaFd’s commercial real estate portfolio, which he notes is majority “stabilized multifamily, which is the safest asset class that we or any bank can make.” Office buildings — the most distressed CRE asset class — account for just 4% of WaFd’s portfolio, Beardall says, noting that CRE is a big and diverse sector beyond the office headlines.
Finally, Beardall talks about his remarkable personal story of surviving a deadly plane crash in early 2023. “You’re flying on a jet airplane to go to the Rose Bowl, and all of a sudden you go from being pretty good to fighting for your life and you realize just how vulnerable you are and how precious life is because it can change in a heartbeat,” he says. “People that I competed with, bankers that I would compete with, they set it all aside and said, “Let’s focus on helping each other.’ We have a lot more in common than we have in terms of differences, and let’s give equal weight to what we have in common and work together for the collective good.”
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“I need people who understand technology and the business more than I need people who understand compliance,” says Greg Imm, who recently retired as chief compliance officer at M&T Bank. “I can teach them compliance. I cannot teach them technology. We are paying much more attention on what is going on in technology that never existed five, six years ago.”
The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — features part two of a two-part conversation with Imm and David Kelly, retiring chief risk officer at Denver-based FirstBank. At ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle, Kelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Risk, and Imm was honored with the Distinguished Service Award for Compliance.
In part two, Kelly and Imm discuss the role of technology in the compliance and risk disciplines, how they hire and coach talent, and their involvement with ABA and other professional development providers over their careers.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
Listen to part one of this conversation. -
In a time of heightened regulatory risk and business challenges, “that’s where the risk professionals become very important,” says David Kelly, CERP, who recently retired as chief risk officer at Denver-based FirstBank. “Those relationships across business lines, because the risk will flow across those business lines, and getting stakeholders together to have those conversations.”
The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — features part one of a two-part conversation with Kelly and Greg Imm, the retired chief compliance officer at M&T Bank and Fifth Third Bank. At ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle, Kelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Risk, and Imm was honored with the Distinguished Service Award for Compliance.
In part one, Kelly and Imm discuss their experience across different institutions — Kelly spent most of his career at FirstBank, while Imm worked at numerous large and regional banks as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. They also discuss the evolving role of technology in risk and compliance professionals and how soft skills contribute to risk and compliance career development.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
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On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — Anthony Sharett, president of Pathward N.A., discusses how his FDIC-insured bank works alongside depository institutions to expand offerings that enhance financial inclusion and reach the unbanked. Sharett discusses Pathward’s reloadable co-branded prepaid card business — which can help a bank offer a Bank On-certified account — as well as its gift card business line. Sharett discusses how Pathward uses a design thinking approach to work with its bank clients to “co-create” products. “There are lots of banks out there that are providing valuable services to customers, providing solutions, providing products that they need, but is there a gap?”
He also talks about new areas where Pathward is branching out, including commercial finance solutions like merchant services, and working capital. “As we think about financial inclusion and financial education and bringing people through that journey of creditworthiness, we are excited about the credit builder product for small and midsize businesses, which are really those entrepreneurs that are the backbone of how we just expand commerce in the United States,” he says.
During the conversation, Sharett also talks about his own background in bank leadership as an attorney who rose up the ranks on the risk and compliance side of banking, and he discusses how Pathward, formerly known as Metabank, developed its new brand when it sold its trademarks to newly renamed Meta Platforms.
This episode is presented by Biz2X.
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What’s new with Small Business Administration lending this year, and how can bankers maximize the value of the SBA loan guaranty programs? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — Erik Daniels of U.S. Bank, the nation’s fourth-largest SBA originator by number of loans, talks about how U.S. Bank builds SBA into its overall business banking strategy.
Daniels highlights the role of SBA lending in making efficient use of capital, mitigating risk, providing more tailored solutions to businesses and driving Community Reinvestment Act impact. He also talks about the value the bank gets out of making SBA loans as a portfolio lender, “which gives our customers great opportunity with rate structure, modifications, any flexibility down the road. . . . Being a portfolio owner gives us the optionality to help them in any way that we can to make their experience a good one.”
Daniels also discusses anticipated changes to SBA programs in 2024 and 2025, and he shares insights on the small business outlook from U.S. Bank clients and survey research.
This episode is presented by Biz2X.
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Checks have become so marginal that the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Payment Choice relegates them to a category of “other,” which, along with prepaid cards and money orders accounted for less than 9 percent of all payments in 2022. But checks aren’t entirely dead, with 11.2 billion still written in the U.S. in 2021. Meanwhile, their use by criminals as a vector of fraud has shot up. Which raises the question: The paper check won’t die. Is it time to kill it? This episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — sets out to answer that question, with the help of top bankers and experts in the payment space.
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According to newly released Gallup figures, just 30 percent of American workers are engaged in their work. The rest are described as disengaged, with 17 percent actively disengaged, “which means they are literally trying to sabotage the organization,” notes Neil Stevens, president and CEO of Oconee State Bank in Oconee, Georgia. “Gallup also says that if you have a 70 percent or higher engagement score, you’re 23 percent more profitable than those with lower engagement scores. So engaged teams truly, in my mind, lead to healthier cultures, better customer retention.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Stevens discusses his approach to cultivating a bank where engagement scores have climbed to 89 percent, triple the national average. Stevens works to build this culture through a framework called Leading Life on Life that emphasizes loving, equipping, affirming and developing (“LEAD”ing) team members. Among other topics on the show, Stevens discusses the role of love in bank management, the importance of active listening and how an environment of healthy affirmation actually allows leaders to hold their teams to higher standards.
Hear Stevens discuss bank culture and employee engagement at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 27-29 in New York City. -
For Financial Literacy Month in April, the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — features a conversation on how banks are engaging their communities with financial education. The ABA Foundation’s Kelsey Havemann discusses a brand-new K-2 Teach Children to Save curriculum launching soon, and Lindsay Torrico talks about the Foundation’s big goal to help five million people get on the path to financial prosperity.
Access free financial education resources from the ABA Foundation. -
What’s the CEO-eye view on the U.S. economy, business conditions and the regulatory environment for banks? This week’s episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — features a conversation with ABA’s Peter Cook and four bank CEOs from across the country. In the conversation, they discuss local economic conditions in their markets, how the “regulatory tsunami” is affecting banks of all sizes, the commercial real estate outlook, what they’re most excited for in the future of banking and more.
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“These rewards are more than just Amex, Chase, Citi,” says Brian Kelly, founder of the popular travel site The Points Guy. “Well over half of Americans have some form of rewards, often through their community banks — and to a lot of people, cash back rewards.” This bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — features a conversation with Kelly and ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols from ABA’s Washington Summit.
In this episode, Kelly discusses his personal story of getting involved with reward travel, his opposition to efforts to cap interchange or impose routing mandates on credit cards and the value that all kinds of consumers get out of card rewards.
Read more about taking action on interchange and routing on Secure American Opportunity. -
The banking agencies and the Justice Department are shifting how they assess and review bank mergers and acquisitions. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — ABA SVP Hu Benton discusses what bankers need to know about potential deals and offers amid the wave of policy changes.
Among other topics, Benton explores:
The Justice Department’s review of bank merger guidelines The FDIC’s newly released policy statement on mergers. How the OCC is evaluating mergers among national banks and federal thrifts. How bank mergers fit into the Biden administration and executive agencies’ broader approach to antitrust considerations. A new resource from ABA and Squire Patton Boggs to help banks assess their readiness for a transaction.Access “Bank Mergers & Acquisitions: A Self-Assessment Guide“
This episode is presented by Alkami.
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